Wannaskan Almanac for Tuesday, November 21, 2023 Another Kansas-Minnesota Connection

You ever dream of finding buried treasure?  The following is a true treasure and crime story that ties southwest Kansas and Minnesota together.  Enjoy!

The Fleagle family left Iowa in the late 1800s and settled in western Kansas' flatlands. Raising four boys, the two eldest, Ralph and Jake Fleagle, would become outlaws in the early 1900s while the other two were diligent and hardworking.

Jake Fleagle

After leaving for San Francisco, California, Jake started working as a card shark. They later moved to Oklahoma, where Jake was charged with burglary and given a one-year sentence to serve at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. They headed back to Garden City in western Kansas, where Ralph was waiting for him when he got out.

The family was starting to prosper with a new house, tractor, and growing herd of cattle stock when neighbors noticed Ralph and Jake were frequently coming and leaving from the farm. Though no one knew they were in charge of a group of gunmen terrorizing the western states, the brothers managed to persuade their family that they had done well on the stock market. For years, the gang boss Jake led them throughout the Sacramento Valley, typically conducting high-stakes gambling house raids and big-money crap games. 

Every now and again when the California heat was at its worst, they would head back to Garden City. Despite being a heavy drinker and philanderer, Jake managed to amass a substantial money account. Ralph, on the other hand, was a tightwad who hid his money in various locations throughout Kansas, Nebraska, California, and Missouri. 60% of the thefts that occurred in and around Kansas and California in the 1920s are thought to have been committed by the Fleagles and their gangs, according to historians.

In order to have more privacy while organizing their antics, the brothers rented a new location close to their parents. They plotted to rob the First National Bank of Lamar, Colorado, in 1928 with the help of three additional members of their "gang." San Quentin escapee Corazon Gargullio cased the bank for the team. Howard Royston of California and George Abshier of Colorado were the other two members that were hand-picked. The theft was meticulously planned, but Jake's superstitions caused it to be postponed multiple times. After growing weary of waiting, Gargullio deserted the gang, only to be gunned down by the FBI a few days later.

Finally, the day came, and the four men went into the bank and loaded up their sacks with twenty thousand dollars. The Fleagle brothers had never fired a gun in their fifteen years of theft, but that day in Lamar, Colorado, bank president A.N. Parrish pulled a 45 and struck Royston in the jawbone. Jake killed Parrish with a retaliatory shot. When J.N. Parrish, the son of the bank president, tried to run to assist his father, Jake shot him down.  The alarm went off in the ensuing panic, and the gang ran away, taking bank employees Ed Lungren and Everett Kessinger hostage and the sheriff trailing closely behind. The gang left the policemen behind and raced off when one of their bullets struck the sheriff's car's radiator. They dropped off bank teller Ed Lungren once they were outside of town, but Kessinger was kept on the running board as a buffer in case they ran into more police.

The group raced through Colorado's back roads until they arrived in western Kansas, with Royston lying on the back floor, writhing from the slug that had lodged in his jaw. After returning to their ranch, the Fleagle brothers buried the money and tied Kessinger up. They eventually used a gun to the head of a Dr. W.W. Wineinger at midnight to wake him up so he could return to the ranch and tend to Royston.

But when Dr. Wineinger failed to return home, the villagers launched a thorough search. Finally, the doctor was located at a cowpath intersection, beneath his old Hudson car. He was shot in the back, blindfolded, gagged, and bound. Cashier Kessinger's bullet-riddled body was discovered in a weedy patch north of Liberal, Kansas, a few days later. He'd been shot in the back, bound, and gagged, just like the Doc. People were furious. The local newspaper called for retaliation. The gang had already made their way to St. Paul, Minnesota, when the authorities dispatched dozens of manhunters.

But Jake Fleagle had left Doc Wineinger's old car with only one fingerprint—a deadly error. A single print was dicey back then, but the authorities struck gold when William Holden, a vagrant, was taken into custody on suspicion of carrying out a train robbery. Holden was released after offering a credible alibi, but the sheriff, acting on suspicion, forwarded his fingerprints to Washington, D.C. The prints were found to belong to Jake Fleagle, who had previously worked at the Oklahoma Penitentiary, and they matched the print on Dr. Wineinger's vehicle, rather than William Holden.

Officers from the sheriff's department hurried to the Fleagle ranch after learning Ralph's address—Kakakee, Illinois. Ralph was caught off guard when Chief Harper hurried to Kankakee and returned to Garden City with him bound. Ralph got to speaking.

Even after being arrested in San Andreas, California, Royston continued to live a quiet, moral life as a husband and father while sporting the scar from the Lamar bullet. After he turned on George Abshier, Abshier was apprehended.

Almost every city and town in the country received over a million posters featuring Jake Fleagle's prison photo, even though there was no lead on him. There was a $25,000 reward for his capture. Eventually, he was shot down in Branson, Missouri, during a shootout with the police.

Royston, Abshier, and Ralph Fleagle were all executed by hanging at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City.

Regarding Ralph Fleagle's buried wealth, several caches containing hundreds of thousands of dollars were discovered in Nebraska in 1952, Kansas in 1961, and the vicinity of Murrieta, California in 1962.

There are still rumored to be numerous Fleagle bandit caches strewn across the Southern California Inland Empire, as well as in the regions of Sacramento, California, and Garden City, Kansas.

Kansas area of Fleagle gang activity

One or both of the following locations are thought to contain a $100,000 hidden cache that was taken from a Nebraskan bank: the Battle Canyon region, the Logan-Scott County badlands, and Ralph Fleagle's ranch, where he resided prior to being apprehended close to Branson, Missouri.

Battle Canyon, near Garden City, Kansas

So, as you can see, there is a tie between Minnesota and Kansas that goes even deeper than the Wannaskan Almanac.  So let's dig up that treasure!